Train track lives and firewhiskey dreams
by thesmokinggnu
Summary: They have lived and loved on different sides of the glass wall that divided their worlds, so close yet never touching; the cruel irony of lives lived in parallel.


**Author's note: Drabbles are not all evenly spaced, they get closer together towards the end. Dates (apart from at the start) are non-specific but roughly canon, although Lily and Narcissa are both in the same year for the purposes of this fic. Un-beta'd so there may be one or two mistakes in there. As ever reviews appreciated ty :)**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately Harry Potter is the property of the incredible JK Rowling, not me.**

Train track lives and firewhiskey dreams

1st September 1971. That is when she first sees her, the girl on the platform. The pale girl kisses her mother on the cheek and turns away, eyes seeking her older sisters among the shifting human tide, but instead glimpse in the corner of the platform a glimmer of red and a nervous smile in a blur of motion. Then like the slamming of a window the steam closes around her and the girl vanishes as suddenly as she appeared.

/

_Black, Narcissa._ Muttering breaks out in the hall as her name is called, and a slight figure with white blonde hair steps forward coolly. Rather than intimidating, the hushed voices reassure her. The family name precedes her now as it always has; she is accustomed to the whispers that have followed her her whole life. Discreet murmurs and lowered eyes that remain fixed on cloak hems as they pass in the street and the palpable release of tension and gratitude when they take their leave. With back straight and eyes proud she sits and stares at the mass of black-clad students: her eyes drawn immediately to the silver and green banners on the left hand side of the hall and the corner of her lip twitches. She pays little attention to the snide voice in her ear: she doesn't need an ancient piece of millinery to tell her where she belongs. In the hat's defence it barely hesitates, and she stands and smiles when the applause drowns her and walks into her sisters' embrace without a backward glance.

/

A flash of red hair in the crush of bodies. The way she walks with hunched shoulders and books clutched protectively against her chest. Narcissa only catches sight of her for a second but it is enough. _Mudblood._ Chin thrust out staring down pairs of curious eyes; she is scared but she's damned if she'll let them see. But Narcissa does. The juxtaposition of body language and aggressive gaze betrays the facade. The girl is obviously overcompensating. She doesn't fit in and she knows it. Narcissa's lips curl in distaste, then purse in disapproval at the sallow-skinned boy following like a puppy behind her. Blood traitors are as bad as mudbloods.

/

It is June. The castle basks in the sunshine, enveloped in a golden summer haze of lazy days and lethargic hours whiled away under the cloudless sky. If asked, normally Narcissa would describe herself as satisfied, content. Today however, she is happy. As she lies back on the grass nestled between the bodies of her older sisters she feels that rare sense of certainty, that today with the fingers of sunlight caressing her pale skin, everything is in its proper place. She nestles into Bellatrix's side and the older girl smiles as she turns her head and wraps an arm around her sister in a rare display of the affection and gentleness, (albeit for only two people) that lurks under her exterior of asphalt, black smoke and bitter liquor. In spite of the bright sun Narcissa doesn't close her eyes, wanting to relish while it lasts this silent instant where the world spins in perfect balance, as if the moment she looks away the axis will topple and radiant moment vanish before her longing eyes.

/

_7...8...9... _Delicate silver fumes rise from the twenty or so cauldrons, immersing the room in a shimmering layer of effervescence whilst Narcissa counts under her breath, stirring anticlockwise_...12...13... _Across the room the Gryffindor girl's brow is creased in concentration as she adds the final drops of Hellebore to her potion_...15...16... _Narcissa scowls. They still have half an hour to go yet she has already finished_...19...20... _A boy with jet black hair is whispering in the ear of her blood traitor cousin, and as she watches they both turn to stare at Lily Evans_...23...24..._ A protectiveness alien to her swells for an instant as Lily becomes aware of the unwelcome attention_...26...27..._ She glares at them and they turn away embarrassed_...28...29..._Then her eyes flick to Narcissa's who is too slow to look away, and just for a single emerald-tinted second, the blonde girl's heart stops_...30._

/

It is December. Spindly fingers of frost climb the castle's leaded windows seeking entrance and Narcissa shivers as she hurries to keep up with her sister though the labyrinthine corridors. Ahead Andromeda turns a corner and the sound of her footsteps stops as Narcissa hangs back to catch a glimpse of the reason for her sister's midnight wanderings. The face of the blonde haired Hufflepuff awaiting her splits into a lazy grin as she comes into view and he hands her a white rose with satin petals that he produces with a flourish from thin air. Andromeda laughs and leans in to kiss him; her hands tangle in his pale hair and his arms wrap around her waist to press their bodies together. Swallowed in the shadow of her alcove Narcissa's hands ball up her nightdress in clenched fists and her breathing is harsh and rapid witnessing her sister's betrayal. A sob rises in her throat and she tears her gaze away from the breath misting around joined lips and flees into the darkness.

/

Andromeda had gone. The cold light of the grey Boxing Day morning trickles through a gap in the heavy drapes and refracts off a tiny shard of glass almost buried in the carpet to send multicoloured specks of light dancing on the wallpaper. With no regard for her bare feet Narcissa pounces on it. The house elves have done their work well and it is the only visible sign of what has happened; of the schism that tore though Narcissa's heart as she lay the previous night with tears streaming down her face, trying to smother herself with a pillow to block out the bangs and raised voices from downstairs. _Andromeda had gone. _Despite all the whispered comforts and stolen caresses, the gentle touches from when she was a child that told her that it would be alright, it would. Andromeda had gone leaving behind nothing but a charred hole in a tapestry and a sliver of glass, shattered on the floor with all her broken promises.

/

A cigarette tip glows briefly in the darkness and the girl – more of a woman now – closes her eyes as she inhales, and passes it to the girl on her left. Neither had yet spoken a word: there was no need. Not when Narcissa had found her crying alone on top of the tower, nor when she had offered her own cigarettes in exchange for the firewhiskey the girl was cradling. Narcissa watches Lily as she breathes out; mascara runs down her face like inky tears and her fiery hair is lost in the darkness to just another shade of brown. They could be anyone in this moment: cloaked in the anonymity of the starless night two girls stand whose lives should never have touched. It is an accident of probability that they are here, and in the morning Narcissa knows the battle lines will once more be visible tracing like faded scars over the skin of the world, waiting for the storm to break. They stand on the edge of a cliff, but with the brilliance of her hair and skin dimmed under murky sky she also knows she could never jump, not if threatened with all she most fears in this world. Unlike Andromeda. Unlike _her. _For if she knows one thing about this almost-stranger it is that Lily would jump, of that she is certain; would readily hurl herself into oblivion in the name of some romanticised notion of nobility, of honour. _Coward. _Death is easy. Living is hard.

/

The diamond glitters in the light of the dying fire, the room holds it breath, and despite herself Narcissa pauses. This is it. She knew the proposal was coming, the question that would offer her everything she has ever wanted. And yet she hesitates. She can feel it now, as she never has before the presence of Fate behind her, bony fingers grasping her shoulder whispering blasphemous doubts like a trickle of poison in her ear. The next word to fly from her lips will seal her fortune and she knows this is her one chance to escape the path predetermined for her by her parents and ancestors, by the traitorous blood that courses like fire through her veins as her heart pounds. Then her eyes find those of Bellatrix, and in the coal black orbs she sees herself reflected back: a symphony of ice blue silk and velvet the colour of the ocean, shimmering pearls adorning ancient silver, reminding her where she belongs. Binding her. This is what she wants. This is who she is.

/

Narcissa shivers involuntarily and pulls her fur wrap more tightly around her. A handsome manor house looms in silhouette behind her, the topmost slates on the roof gilded silver by the frosty winter moon. In one hand she clutches a half empty bottle of some amber liquid; with the other skims a piece of gravel from the path into the fountain, entranced by the hypnotic effect of the ripples in the black water. She giggles to herself, if only her mother could see her now; the favourite daughter drunk and alone in the night, the powdery snow collecting like fallen feathers around the hem of her dress. In the distance a bell begins to toll and the sky lights up in streaks of red and gold which fade all too fast, leaving only smoky trails in the cloudless sky and coloured streaks burned into her retinas. She hears laughter floating through the open door as in the warmth of the candlelight glasses are raised to toast the New Year, and the new dawn that it brings.

/

Bellatrix is fire. Wild untameable energy; irrational, precocious, that sears and devours, wreaking merry destruction upon all in her path. Narcissa is water. Cool and impassive, controlled and unquestioning, always choosing the path of least resistance worn smooth by generations. She cannot bear to think of Andromeda, of the gaping abyss where the earth once stood, so instead she thinks of air. Lily is air. Swirling and dancing with laughter that tinkles like bells, she is the unchained melody that you cannot quite place no matter how hard you listen.

/

Hurrying down the high street Narcissa ducks inside the doorway of the pub as the first raindrops begin to fall and scans the crowded room for her fiancé. Before she sees him however her eyes alight upon the couple seated in the far corner: a young man with windswept hair sits with his arm around a green eyed girl who is laughing with her head thrown back, oblivious to the bustle around them. So she has taken him back. She is happy now though, as happy as Narcissa has ever seen her. But it is tinged with desperation, as though they are compensating now for the time they may not have. A new summer is rising and each day brings news of another death, nameless faceless witches and wizards who fall one by one. They sit close together each taking comfort from the physical proximity of the other; wanting to squeeze the most from every moment as if they can sense somehow they are numbered even as they smile and tease one another, heads filled with sun kissed dreams of far off days born of maybes and what ifs. But Narcissa does not pity her. Lily has chosen her way. _At least you had the choice._ A hand settles on her shoulder and she smiles into the grey eyes of Lucius Malfoy and allows him to steer her away from where Lily Evans laughs like she has all the time in the world.

/

When she looks back on her wedding day in years to come she will remember very little, and that which she does will be only arbitrary details, like tiny points of focus against a blurred background. She must have said her vows at some point, must have walked down the aisle. All she can picture however is herself in her wedding dress: so pale against her platinum hair and porcelain skin that the figure in the mirror may as well be a ghost. She feels sufficiently insubstantial after all. She remembers grey eyes boring into her, blonde hair and black dress robes: a wedding in binary colours. It isn't until later, her soft cry and a man's grunt splitting the expectant silence of the empty house, that the missing spectrum is finally revealed as her world dissolves into colour behind trembling eyelids. It is in that moment, lying in her husband's arms; their flushed skin pressed together, the softness of her body against the hard planes of his chest, she feels suddenly safer than she has in a long time.

/

There is no fanfare, no fireworks. Just cold November rain falling like a curtain from the leaden sky, plants and leaves bowed under the incessant deluge. Narcissa doesn't cry; she's not even sure if she can any more. The girl she has watched for so long from afar now lies cold and silent, the song that has finished although the record keeps turning. They have lived and loved on different sides of the glass wall that divided their worlds, so close yet never touching; the cruel irony of lives lived in parallel. There is no spectre of grief; no welling of despair inside her, simply a slight ache in her abdomen, as though she is missing something she never previously realised was there. But that is all. A single tear slips down her cheek as she turns away from the window, whilst outside the rain keeps falling, washing away the last traces of the girl who once laughed in the arms of the man she died loving, in that faded summer that seemed so long ago.


End file.
